I was more than a little saddened to read Aidin Vaziri’s obituary for composer Lalo Schifrin, which showed up in my Inbox this morning in the daily Morning Fix article from the San Francisco Chronicle. Vaziri provided a generous account of Schifrin’s achievements in Hollywood, citing his “fusion of jazz, Latin rhythms and experimental time signatures.” Sadly, there was no mention of any of the “music for its own sake” albums that he released.
The most interesting of these could not have been more remote from Tinsel Town. A little less than four years ago, I wrote a “think piece” about what I felt was Schifrin’s most interesting (if not provocative) effort. This was the 1966 release of his studio album The Dissection and Reconstruction of Music From the Past as Performed by the Inmates of Lalo Schifrin’s Demented Ensemble as a Tribute to the Memory of the Marquis de Sade. This was released not long after the Royal Shakespeare Company took The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade to Broadway, inspiring Schifrin to produce an album as a “response” to the “call” of the German playwright Peter Weiss.
from the Amazon.com Web page
I am not sure how successful this album was where marketing was concerned. However, Schifrin seems to have enjoyed the undertaking, because he was able to release a “follow-up” album, Return of the Marquis de Sade. Both of these albums fall into the category of “serious fun;” and I must confess that I was more than a little disappointed that Vaziri overlooked such a memorable aspect of the composer’s talents!
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